Is it possible to be "Over-Educated?"

As a person goes through life, there is a really high possibility that they will encounter ideas that are foreign to them and that will challenge their core values and beliefs.  I think this is the basis for higher education  - to challenge our core values and beliefs.  Sometimes, after learning about a new idea or concept, I come back to my original belief.  Other times, I decide that maybe what I have been believing all this time may not have been based in fact.

But, as a highly educated person, I must ask you to think about the definition of fact?  Is there such a thing as a fact, or is a fact an abstract concept that can be manipulated?  I think facts are abstract concepts, which leads me to the conclusion that all of our opinions are based on abstract concepts.

You can take a simple statement, such as the sky being "blue".  What is "blue?"  Can you define "blue?"  Will your definition of "blue" be the same as mine, and the same as our friends'?  Can "blue" even be described?  As I write this, the meaning of "blue" has actually diminished in my mind, and has now become a clump of letters that some ancient people made up to help them describe, as accurately as possible, potentially abstract concepts.

If you think I'm wrong, think about the definition of life.  A doctor may have a universally agreed upon definition of life (i.e. what type of physiological functions are necessary to have in order to be 'alive'), but the word 'life' means so much to so many different people.  Ask a teenager who is grounded and can't go to the prom.  Is that life?  What do we mean when we tell people to "get a life?"  Is there some popular standard that means that you have a "life"?

In conclusion, I will leave you with a final question:  What is truth?  Maybe you will see, like I do, sometimes, when I am not clutching violently to some belief, that truth, like fact, is an abstract concept and appears differently to everyone who sees it - and even to those who cannot.